


Nobody Said It Was Easy

by rocket_cat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Spoilers, Swearing, THIS IS FILled with incest fight me, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3965293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocket_cat/pseuds/rocket_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's such a shame for us to part./</p><p>Four times Wanda allows herself into Pietro's head, because sometimes sanity is more important than security.<br/>And what a mistake she has made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Said It Was Easy

**Author's Note:**

> lmao To be honest I'm not really sure time-wise when anything happens within Age of Ultron, especially like, when shit went down in the end and whatever happened before the movie started, so I just kind of made up ages and time frames for everything oops. Watching this movie illegally like, six times helped with nothing.  
> ~  
> Also watching Wanda do all the mind-bending shit was like the hottest thing in the world I scREAMED and yes, I just wasted a whole month of my life just so I could write this I hate myself.  
> ~  
> Also I totally made up their birthdays, I don't even know when these crazy kids are born oh well  
> Ah yes, and I'm American, biscuits are like rolls, bread y'know not cookies

The first time Wanda gets inside his head, they are both 13, and Hydra has just dumped them into a cell. 

“They are finished” The balding monster had muttered before man-handling her into the concrete room alongside her brother.

Pietro has natural instinct to crawl his way into a corner, his chin digging into his bony knees. 

They are 13 and five months and have already been to hell and back.   

She has to think about it over and over wasting 20 minutes before she actually decides that _yes_ , she’s going to reach all the way into his brain and see what the terrified boy is going through. God knows that maybe she could lend him some comfort. 

His mind races a mile a minute which doesn't surprise her. He is filled with images of needles and white rooms and screams. Oh god, so much screaming, even while he is silent. She feels as if she is flipping through a scrapbook; looking at all his old memories. This is what nightmares are like.

There is so much horror in his head, so much torture; she can’t stand to think of it. She can’t keep herself here, but she insists on searching on. Insists that there has to be something in the middle of all it that keeps him stable. Something that keeps him sane, because Wanda knows that she can’t possibly be anymore. 

She digs through it all; the whole last year. Everything opens and closes like doors, the bad memories she shuts and locks, the good thoughts she leaves wide open, until she thinks there’s nothing left and it’s about time to give up. Whether she found it or not wouldn’t matter, Pietro would never know anyway. And then she stops. There in the very back (or at least, it’s what Wanda thinks could be the back) is peace.    

And peace is a girl. With flickering red eyes and long hair, she sits in a bare field and makes the flowers around her fly. It’s a beautiful image, but Wanda is scared, because _he knows_. And nothing can ever be the same when you have a twin brother who can run at lightning speeds, and _knows that you can read his mind_. Nothing is sacred.   

She exits herself quietly, although she’s not really sure how that works, and tries to act as normal as she can.

She leaves her post by the door and walks softly over to Pietro who still sits in the corner.

“You should go to bed.” She whispers before crouching down next to him. They are the same age, but Wanda has already grown into herself and Pietro still looks the same as he did when he was 10 and she can’t help but feel like she’s talking to a child.

He gives her a slight shake of his head. Pietro is stubborn and Wanda knows to not tell him again. Instead she sits down next to him on the cold concrete and grabs his hand. He takes hers back immediately and leans into her small frame. 

“Go to sleep Pietro.” God, she sounds like her mother. _God_ , she _misses_ her mother. 

They stay like that throughout the evening; knees pressed up against each other, even after Wanda tries getting up and is refused by a handful of protests.  

She jostles his hand from hers but stops when he mumbles, half asleep, 

“Don’t let me go. Don’t let m -"

“ _I’m not._ ” 

She stays with him the whole night. 

~

There is a second time, a few days after their fifteenth birthday when Wanda decides that maybe sanity is more important than security.

When October rolls around again like it does every year, Wanda sits on the corner of Pietro's cardboard-stiff mattress and asks,

"What do you want for your birthday?"

He shrugs and turns his back to her. There is a small foot-wide window in Pietro's room that allows the sunlight to come in during the early mornings, but his body blocks any source of light that might come her way.

"You know what I want? I want to go back outside. I want to run again." His shoulders stiffen at the mention of running, and Wanda notices, but continues anyway, because they're the only ones left, and somebody has to hear her wishes.

She'll only have one fifteenth birthday, and she's trying to make it worth it.

"I need to get out of here, y'know. I need to go a week without getting poked at and experimented on. I just want to be normal." She licks her lips while Pietro takes her words in. "God, I need some chapstick."

When she finally looks away from Pietro's shadow on the floor, it's only to look out to the grey walls on the other side of the hall. Her room is right next door, and she's technically supposed to stay in there at all times, but the Hydra agents are so terrified of her and she has earned her right to roam.

She can't stand being within the same space as Pietro when he's acting like this. Like the whole world has fallen out of the sky and there's only him left.

So she leaves, because at this point Wanda thinks he's being too selfish. At least he has the window.

When she exits his room her first place of residence is not back to her own, but instead to the dingy kitchens where she steals a few fresh biscuits and a honey bear. Upon her returning she throws the smiling bear onto Pietro's bed through the prison bars. Because that's where they are. In prison for not committing crimes. How ironic.

She places two of the biscuits on the ground and with a push of her mind they join the honey jar. She tries to think of home. She tries to think of lazy Sunday afternoons in Romania and Wednesday evenings at the market and fresh bread and birthdays.

Birthdays that mean nothing now. Birthdays that used to be filled with butter cream icing and presents and her best friend Corina. They are now filled with nightmares and stolen food that means nothing to what they used to have and it makes Wanda want revenge, but revenge is futile.

She wants so badly to tell Pietro something, _anything_ to ease himself but she's at a loss for words so instead she whispers through the bars of his room,

"Happy birthday _fratele meu_."  Happy birthday my brother.

When Wanda finally makes her way five steps down the hall into her own cell, she freezes at the sight of her bed. There, lying on the mattress is a handful of chocolates, and a new chapstick.

Her breathing is uneven, as she grabs a chocolate and tosses it into the air. As it floats mid-air, the realization hits her: Someone is watching; and part of Wanda fears so much for her life, but deep down in her stomach something starts to flip, because there is the rare possibility of someone new, and a new mind to explore, but more importantly _maybe a friend_.

A few days later she is sitting on her bed when a woman walks past her cell and Wanda _knows_. There's always weird something about knowing. You know when someone has died, you know when someone is lying to you, and you know the woman who gave you the only present for your fifteenth birthday.

"What's your name?" Wanda asks her.

The woman jumps and slaps a hand over her heart.

"Excuse me?" She slowly turns in her place to face Wanda on her bed. Her hair falls over her shoulders in blonde waves.

"What is your name? And do you have a book? I know you gave me the present." Wanda can't stop herself from talking now; the words are tumbling out of her mouth.

"I can read minds, I know you did it."

"I know you can." The blonde's answer gives Wanda a shock. "I helped make you that way. My name is Elena. I have a-"

She falters for a second while scanning over Wanda's living space

"Yes, I have a book. Give me a moment."

Elena returns five minutes later with a hard copy version of Romeo and Juliet and another handful of chocolates.

"For your brother." She says.

"I've already shared with him." Wanda lies.

"You should share some more."

That evening she sits on the floor of Pietro's room playing cards through the cell bars with Elena. Pietro paces around her tearing the wrappers off of Hershey Kisses and then eating then at lighting speeds. Wanda has to constantly remind him to slow down, while Elena insists that she has more.

Elena teaches her how to play Go Fish and Old Maid and Speed (Wanda beats her 12 times) and eventually Pietro joins them and they all play Spades for an hour and Wanda talks about the first part of Romeo and Juliet the whole time until Elena is called on and has to leave.

She tells Pietro to keep the pack of cards.

"She's nice isn't she?" Wanda asks him, while Pietro shuffles the cards on the cement floor.

"I guess."

"It's better than nothing. You never told me what you wanted for your birthday." She's trying to be nice. Trying to smile again after the letdown of such a good night.

So she's going to do it. She going to get into his head because Wanda isn't a little girl anymore and it's no longer for safety, it's just because she's a jerk really.

_ Gross _ .

What a mistake she has made. Pietro is so filled with disgusting boy things, so filled with Elena; god does he ever think of anything clean nowadays? Give Wanda some Windex, _please_.

It's like performing heart surgery, trying to navigate through Pietro head. One wrong move and whoops- You're patient is dead and you're head first into Elena's cleavage. But there's got to be something deep down past the gutter that Pietro wanted. He's always so hard to figure out, Wanda has discovered. Since she was a little girl, she's been the one to explain things, to tell people how he's feeling, to say what's wrong, because she know damn well that he's not going to himself. But now they're older and she can't figure him out, and Pietro doesn't speak half as much, and she has to dig through everything to find him again. He's a rusted treasure chest and she's still trying to pick the lock.

Surprisingly, finding his thoughts-his calm ones at least-aren't as hard as the first time. They're sitting there right under a manila folder, because Pietro is organized and imaginative like that. His brain is a giant office space.

_ I want to be normal and I want ice cream again and I want my mother and I want to be fifteen-and-in-school not fifteen-and-experimented-on and I want to go home and I wan- _

Wanda tears herself away from him. She can't stand it, seeing him this way, so isolated from everything, even her. And now she hears it too. When she finally manages to tear her eyes away from the wall in front of her and to the floor, her cheeks are wet from crying. She runs a hand down the side of her face and wipes herself off.

"What's wrong?" Pietro asks.

"Nothing, nothing." Her answer comes out rushed. "It's nothing."

_ I want to be normal. I want to be normal. _

But how could she help him?

She thinks back to her new book, to Romeo and Juliet, the best piece of advice she might have. What did they do? They did nothing, they were idiots. Sure, romantic idiots, but six people ended up dead by the end of the story. (Wanda has read it cover-to-cover twice already) Okay, so maybe it's not the best book to take life lessons from. Whatever. That doesn't stop her that night before she leaves Pietro's room, from walking up to him in the small patch of moonlight the window gives off and grabbing his hands gently.

_ Normal, normal, _

"Oh, you're going to hate me." she mutters before pressing her lips against his for half a second.

_ normal, fifteen-and-normal, oh how Wanda wants that too. _

Sure Wanda might be a little naïve for a fifteen year old, but she sure isn't _stupid_ and yeah, they are brother and sister but they aren't really family anymore, and this is all probably illegal in some areas but it's still alright.

And Pietro kisses her back.

~

When they are 18, they lie in Wanda's bed together all day and talk about what life might be like. What the sun might feel like on Pietro's skin, and what flowers still smell like, and how babies cry.

"Babies are gross." Wanda states.

"They're adorable." Pietro argues back.

What weddings in the spring would be like, what weddings in the _winter_ would be like, how high Wanda can lift her bed mentally before she makes then crash land back onto the cement floor and Pietro laughs at her attempts to raise them again. How great it feels to hear him laugh. She holds his hands in hers as much as she can, she touches his face, his cheeks, she's become obsessed with how much she's missed her brother, she never lets him go.

He never lets her go.

He has nightmares every night now, they are constant, and every night he sneaks out and into Wanda's bed and she holds him while he cries. When the nights get worse she touches her fingers across his forehead and sends him to sleep.

She gets into him once, late at night after sending him to sleep. He's filled with horror again, and Wanda pushes back his hair, distracting herself from crying. His roots are starting to grow in white and she knows that eventually all his hair will be the color of the moon. That'll be a conversation starter.

Pietro has grown out of his office space, his manila folders, and now the thoughts lay scattered like the Hydra agents, like Elena's.

Wanda has never been able to take all of Pietro at once, he's too overwhelming for her, and she's always known it, but this time she can't back down, or run away. Tonight she has to stay like the little creep she is digging inside his mind for his worst thoughts.

Because she's going to remove them. Something she's only done a couple times and the agents who walk past her during the early hours of the morning. And they're always small thoughts, like _Going to the kitchen_ or _Call your father_. She just removes them, and they call it off as forgetting. She figures she can implant thoughts, worst fears and tragedies, so, why not take them out too?

She hovers a hand over Pietro's forehead and tries to concentrate, and a few moments later when the air between her hand and his face glows red she thinks she's done it. The glowing specks that hover between the two of them must be an affirmative signal. _She's done it. Oh christ, everything is heaven she's done it, she might as well've saved a life._

She chokes out a sob before removing herself from his space, and leaving her room. They swap rooms for that night and as soon as she flops herself onto Pietro's mattress she lets out a hard laugh before curling into the grey sheets and falling asleep.

The next morning Pietro wakes up dazed and confused, like a piece of him in missing, but he doesn't say a word about it, and life goes on.

Wanda's mind twisting doesn't come back up until months down the road when they are nineteen, and a war is raging on outside Pietro's window. Elena had visited them the week before with a small package of clothes. Her hands shook as she passed them to the twins.

"What is happening?" Wanda had asked.

Elena had shaken her head furiously. Bad things are happening, everyone knows that. Elena's visits get less frequent, and the sound of gun shots get louder and the pack of cards Pietro still keeps have worn out edges. He's missing the three of clubs.

"Something big. You'll need these. Can't stay in grey your whole life."

"What do you mean?"

"Something big, Wanda. Trust me."

Wanda tries to smile up at Elena, but she has a feeling _something big_ does not mean _something good_.

"Stay safe, Elena." Wanda whispers through the rooms bars, while Pietro takes her package. She knows what's coming. And safe is so far from it, but she knows that Elena has a life outside of Hydra, she has a home and a son, and she needs to stay safe. Wanda raises a hand to Elena's face, and pushes her hair back. So blonde, and so beautiful, and so nice to them when they had nothing.

She repeats herself.

"Stay safe, my friend."

Elena wipes away a tear at the corner of her eye and firmly turns and leaves. Wanda does not see her again.

Six days later they are both standing in a hallway, lost and scared out of their wits. Wanda keeps the note Elena had left them alongside their clothes pressed against the palm of her hand.

_ Get out of there _ , She had written in her loopy handwriting _Find T.S._

Oh no way. No way in hell were they finding Tony Stark. That man had tried to kill them. And yet here they were, with an escape in mind trying to get past the dozens of Hydra agents to leave.

_ Thank you T.S. _ Wanda sends out a mock prayer.

It would be easy to just use her mind control, shove a couple things across the room, and have Pietro zooming them across the country in no time, but that seemed too easy. Like the men in green were suspecting them to leave.

Wanda puts a foot out into the hallway and immediately starts to regret everything she's ever done. What if this isn't right? What if everything goes all wrong, and she's shot down and killed, and this was all for nothing.

She turns to her brother.

"I can't do it, Pietro."

"What do you mean you can’t?" He snaps back at her.

"I mean, _I can't_. This is all wrong."

“This isn’t wrong, Wanda. This is justice."

"Justice? Pietro you don't know-" She tries to find the right words to tell him. "What they're thinking-what they'll do to us again if we're caught. I can't risk that. You don't know what they're like."

Pietro looks at her for half a second before bursting at the seams.

"What they're _like_?! Wanda, Christ, I know everything! You think _you_ were the only one hurt? At least you got something useful out of it! You sit around and get into people’s heads, and it  _helps you._ "

Wanda clasps a hand over her mouth. 

Pietro woke up that morning feeling like a piece of him was stolen, and he knew who took it.

"If we don't get out of here now, Jesus fuck, we never will! It's now, or _never_. I am leaving even if it kills me. Are you coming with?"

He holds out his hand for hers, but before Wanda has time to take it, or even respond, there is a loud roar from outside. Drywall falls from the ceiling as the building shakes, and she knows that Pietro is right. This is it. 

Now or never. 

~

The last time she gets inside of him is unknowingly also the last time she ever sees him. How it pains her to think about it even now, so far into the future.

They are in the middle of battle with Ultron, and all of Hell has broken loose. Wanda knows that Pietro has already grown close to the new people they have met, especially the man with the bow, Clint, and she has tried her hardest to protect them all, but at this point in time she has grown tired. She only has two objectives in mind: Keep Pietro safe; Stop Ultron.

The words sound so silly in her head. Stopping Ultron is nearly impossible. What they are doing against him is child's play, and she knows it.

She's winding down now, her mind foggy from trying to do so much at once. She can sense it from the others as well, and she knows that this isn't going to end well. They're all going to fall from the sky to their deaths, and Ultron isn't going to bat a chrome covered eye.

Stark yells at her through the ear piece she was assigned earlier that morning, though he's too broken up to understand. Something about _jets_ and _Fury_ but that's it and instead of trying to communicate back, she rips the damn thing out. Too much metal, too close to her.

She is so sick of metal. There were the needles and the bars of her bedroom, and Ultron and now this stupid piece of junk they all use to talk to each other with. Wanda thinks it's possibly the dumbest inventions ever, because honestly, no one wants Natasha Romanoff constantly humming the Bill Nye theme song in their ear.

Wanda needs her brother and she needs some peace, and when she gets her hands on Ultron's metal little heart she's tearing that damn thing straight out and eating it for lunch, goddammit.

Her thoughts trace off to where her brother might be in all this mess for a second too long, and a half-ton robot comes crashing into her side. She pushes it away with forces equal to it, but that doesn't stop her from crying out in pain when she tries to take in a breath of air. At least two of her ribs are broken, maybe three.

Pietro must've been close by, fighting off more bots, because at the sound of her second cry he is by her side, his arm laced around her waist. 

"What happened? Are you okay?" He asks.

"'M fine, just a scratch." She leans into his shoulder, trying to keep her breathing even. "How are you keeping up?"

"Good, yeah. Barton called me in for some back up earlier, just removing people. I think it's almost over." He gives her a half smile. But she knows what that means. He'll have to leave her again, back away into the city, away from what she's protecting. Where he could get hurt at any second. 

"You can't stay here? Don't they have plenty of help out there already?" Wanda is so selfish and she knows it. "Stay here, with me."

"No I- Wanda this is important."

"I know, I know." She lets go of his side forcefully. She doesn't need him anymore. She _can't_ need him. She takes a step forward, then turns to him.

"Don't do anything stupid, Pietro. Stay safe."

He barks out a laugh.

"Me? Stupid? You underestimate me. I'll be back in no time, it's _you_  who needs to stay out of trouble."

He gives her a small smile before grabbing her face and pressing a hard kiss onto her lips. She can feel one of his hands running its way through her hair; and _oh_ how she wishes they could stay like this forever. Without ever being hurt again. But there is hurt going on just meters away from them, and somebody has to fix it but before they do, Wanda dips in one last time and reads every little thought in Pietro mind. The good, the bad, the memories, the wishes, and the fears. Everything she wishes that he would just tell her himself. But one sticks out prominent against the rest. It twists its way into her own head and makes itself comfortable and for a few seconds they are 13 again, resting against the wall, hands intertwined. Even years down the road when Pietro is long dead and gone, Wanda never forgets the way his voice sounds when he kisses her that afternoon and the one thought she knows is just for her.

_ Don't let me go, don't let me go. _

**Author's Note:**

> lmao KILL ME PIETRO STYLE


End file.
